Connection between CJD and head trauma/CTE
My dad recently passed away from probable sporadic CJD at 67. He played football for many years, including high school and college, and our family has long suspected that he developed CTE from that.
I asked the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center about the connection, and they shared this article with me: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40478-018-0643-9
The study looked at 55 people with autopsy-confirmed CTE and found 2 who also had sporadic CJD. They also reported a third person identified through the National Prion Center who had both diseases.
Based on the normal incidence of sporadic prion disease, the researchers calculated that they would have expected only about 0.004 cases of prion disease in the group of 55. They calculated the probability of finding 2 or more cases by chance alone at about 9 in a million.
This was a very small study and it absolutely does not establish that CTE or head trauma causes CJD. The authors themselves said a much larger study would be needed. But they concluded that their findings provided preliminary evidence that CTE could potentially be associated with an increased risk of sporadic CJD.
One other interesting finding was that the CJD in these patients looked like typical sporadic CJD at the molecular level. In other words, the prion disease seemed to have developed on top of pre-existing CTE.
It made me really curious about the CJD community more broadly. Did your loved one have a significant history of repetitive head impacts or traumatic brain injuries? Football, hockey, boxing, military service/blast exposure, multiple concussions, serious head injuries, etc.? And if they had an autopsy, was CTE ever evaluated?